top of page
Search
Writer's pictureThe Red Wheelbarrow Poetry

The slaughterhouse speaks to the poet

Melissa Sussens


You have been inside me,

though neither of us were given a choice.

You know how white I am within. You know

how much I love to shine, how I glow

when I am as spotless as a polished gun.

Do you think they chose my red brick exterior

on purpose? Is it meant to camouflage

the truth of the life I have drained

away? When I have only the chilled

carcasses and the cold night

air for company, I exhale. Don’t feign

surprise. You must know I hold

my breath for blood. We are the same,

you and I. Both architects of death.

I am of superior design, I will outlast

you. You, who name yourself kind

while wielding words as blade.

Do not blink as you gut the truth,

exhume the body of memory. Call me loss,

call me graveyard for carnage, call me home

to the murdered. It does not matter. Death takes

getting used to. I see the way it feeds

you. Now, reach for paper before comfort settles

in, dissect me over and over on the page.


Featured at The Red Wheelbarrow on 20 October 2022


0 comments

Recent Posts

See All

The Little Yellow House

Phelelani Makhanya There is a little yellow house at the corner of the street, where the jacaranda has painted the paving purple. Every...

Naughty Greens

Basil du Toit The rude vegetables are up to no good again, succumbing to irresistible inflations, their growth-tips, tautly congested,...

Evening Song (Durban)

Ari Sitas After a day of stoning and gas an ancient chore beckons by the ocean’s lip - a crowd heaving, heaving, sifting through the sand...

ความคิดเห็น


Post: Blog2_Post
bottom of page